I was reading Bob Proctor’s book, You Were Born Rich: Now You Can Discover and Develop Those Riches, and there was one lesson there that I wanted people to learn as it can help them break out of a life of failure. Near the end of the book, Bob explained that there is a “law of opposites” that you can observe about the world. If there’s yin, there’s yang. If there’s light, there’s dark. If there’s success, there’s failure. We know that already, but why is it important?

Most of us wish to become successful and happy. Unfortunately though, we often miss the mark. We don’t get the job we want, our business doesn’t take off, or something else. For one reason or another, we fail at the things that could have made us happier or more successful.

What if there was a way for you to control just about every aspect of your life and change them for the better. Will you use it?

While reading Napoleon Hill’s book, The Law of Success In Sixteen Lessons, I came across a very familiar and valuable poem which contains the essence of several excellent success and self-improvement books and I want to share it with you.

During the time I was able to join a martial arts class, I noticed that some students were able to do better during the harsh physical conditioning part of training. Those regulars who joined the class almost every session completed the hundreds of push-ups, sit ups, squats, and long planks faster and with better form than students like me who were only able to attend a couple of Saturdays a month at most. Some of them started training later than I have but, unsurprisingly, they quickly grew stronger as time went on.

If you’ve ever started a certain career, sport, or hobby, do you ever wonder why some people become better and more successful than you over time? Ruling out “luck” or “natural talent”, did you know that there’s something else at work and that you can use that something to improve just about all areas of your life as well? That’s the lesson we’ll learn here today. Keep reading as you might learn something amazing.

Once upon a time, a samurai’s son named Zenkai became the retainer of an official. Unfortunately, he fell in love with that official’s wife and, when he was discovered, Zenkai killed the official in self-defence. He then ran away with the woman and they both became thieves to survive. After a while, however, Zenkai grew disgusted by the woman’s greed and so he left her and he became a beggar at Buzen province.

To atone for his past misdeeds, he wanted to do something good before he died. When he found out about a dangerous road in a valley where many travelers died, he decided to carve a tunnel through the stone mountain. Begging for food during the day, he did his work every night.

We pass knowledge and wisdom to the next generation through books, articles, videos and many other forms of media. That is how society evolves and how the world changes for the better. By learning from what others have gained from experience, we skip years of costly trial and error and use what we learned to advance even further than before. By investing in knowledge, we increase our chances of becoming more successful. The more we know, the more opportunities we’ll be able to use as well as create.

There is, however, one caveat to this and it’s the reason why so many “smart” and well-read people end up in mediocrity. Do not make the mistake of thinking that “knowledge is power.” It certainly isn’t. Or at least, not knowledge alone.